Mobile devices are becoming increasingly integrated with “cloud”. That is, emails, photographs, and other documents stored on the mobile device are often uploaded to a centralized external server which synchronizes the digital documents with the user's other devices.
One such example is an online photograph album service, which, responsive to a user taking a picture on their phone or tablet computer, the digital photograph is automatically uploaded to the album service's online storage, where it may then be available to the user's other connected devices, and potentially to other users such as “friends” or “subscribers” or “followers” of the user as in social media and other paradigms.
Occasionally, a user may unknowingly take and share a digital photograph which contains information he or she does not wish to be made public. For example, a group of co-workers may hold a baby shower in a conference room in an office environment during a work day, at which a number of employees are present and many casual and composed photographs may be taken. As the users of these capturing devices, such as phones and tablet computers, upload their photos to their online albums, social media accounts, etc., the photographs become publicly accessible to one degree or another. However, it may later be discovered that in the background of some of these photographs appears a whiteboard on which confidential company information appears. While this is unfortunate, there is very little that can be done to “put the toothpaste back in the tube” because deleting the photo from one's online accounts and albums may not actually retrieve and delete all copies which have been distributed to trusted associates (followers, friends, etc.) of those online accounts.